Chocolate Chip Cookies – Bakery Style

I have tried about 25 different recipes over the years trying to find the "perfect chocolate chip cookie" – you know, the kind you buy in the bakeries for a lot of money. This recipe matches my idea of great chocolate chip cookies: crispy on the edges, soft and chewy — and they still taste good after they cool down, even a couple of days later (that is, if they last that long.)

Chocolate Chip Cookies — Bakery Style

1¼ cups butter
1¼ cups light brown sugar
1 cup + 2 Tb. white sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1¼ tsp. baking soda
1½ tsp. baking powder
1½ tsp. coarse salt (1¼ tsp. table salt)
3½ cups flour
1½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Using a mixer with the cookie paddles, cream butter and sugars until very light and creamy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs and mix well, about 3-4 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. Add the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add the baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix well, and scape the bowl. Finally, add all the flour at once. Mix carefully until all the flour is just combined, 10-20 seconds. Mixing too long will toughen your finished cookie, but make sure you don't have big clumps of flour left. Add the chocolate chips and barely blend in until they are all mixed in.

At this point, you can bake the cookies immediately, and they are pretty good. Or you can refrigerate the dough, well-covered, for 24-36 hours (up to 72 hours). This will allow the flavors to blend, the moisture to fully soak into the dry ingredients, and will give you the best texture for the finished baked cookies. You can also freeze the dough at this point.

Dough formed into cookies, ready for the refrigerator or freezer.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the cookie sheets with parchment paper (this is optional, but it sure helps the cookies bake evenly). Scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet in scoops about the size of ping-pong balls. Flatten the balls a bit. Bake at 350° F for 11 minutes.

Hint: it takes more time up front, but if you scoop the dough into balls and then refrigerate them in a big container, layered with plastic wrap, it is a cinch to toss the cookie dough balls on a tray and smash them a bit before baking them. After the dough is cold, it’s a bit of a chore to scoop out the thick dough. Note: For high altitudes you may need to increase the flour by 1/3 to 1/2 cup.

Melinda's Notes: This is an adaptation of a professional bakery chef's famous chocolate chip recipe. I found a newspaper article with a recipe that looked good, but the original used bread flour, cake flour, and unbleached flour. I only had the regular old unbleached flour. So I added everything up and used regular flour and cut the recipe down to a manageable amount of dough. If you make these huge and bake them for about 17 minutes, they taste exactly like the cookies sold in fancy, expensive bakeries.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Question: Do these work at high altitude without the extra flour?